Friends and readers, it is with great excitement and pride that I share with you my latest publishing feat! Some time ago I wrote a little short story entitled “Her Majesty’s Untapped Fury” and submitted it to the Seattle-based Mad Scientist Journal for their Summer, 2016 anthology. And now, here it is, Summer and the anthology has been published both in print and digital!

I suppose you’ll want to know what it’s about before you buy, correct? So be it!

“Her Majesty’s Untapped Fury” is about the discovery of the world’s first weather machine and the hotly debated “mad” scientist who created it. To reveal anything more would give too much away, but suffice it to say that the Archive and primary sources are heavily featured!

What’s that? You’d like an excerpt as an additional form of incentive? Oh, well, all right! Twist my arm!

While conducting research on the correlation between science and megalomania, I found
myself arriving at, of all places, the Royal Society. London has a long and storied history of men
in suits with egos the size of planets, so logic dictated that my time would be well spent rifling
through papers craftily collected as glorified tributes to the scientifically-minded God Complex.
My hope was that the rarest of rare instances might occur: stumbling upon the papers of a
genius lost to the ages. The odds were against me. Most of the interesting subjects had already
been discovered. But I felt confident that my wayward mastermind had to exist amid the myriad
stacks and collections tucked safely within the pristine walls of the Archives.

It goes without saying that my days were spent combing through the long-winded essays
and profoundly worded declarations preserved for the sake of posterity and little else. The
tedium, however, finally bore fruit when I began to notice a common phrase appearing in the
minutes, correspondence, and journals of prominent Society members during the late
nineteenth century. Plainly written, or as plain as elaborate script can be, it said “the Mad
Rodney wm.” There was very little context to the statement, and the more it appeared, the more
it began to take on an air of warning. Between the years 1859-1867, “Mad Rodney” was a
popular topic of conversation within the Society, despite their attempts to keep appearances to
the contrary. So who was he, and why did he inspire such hushed tones in an otherwise
garrulous group of intellectual gossips?

As always, the first one’s free. To find out more, you’ll have to make a slight contribution. Luckily, I have websites for you to visit where said contributions will not only finish my tale, but provide you with many more amazing tales of mad science to keep you good and entertained!

Lastly, thank you to Mad Scientist Journal for the opportunity to submit as well as publishing this story that was tremendously fun to write. Thank you to my beta readers who offered their support. And thank you to those who will eventually read my story and all of the stories therein.